UT's Officially Disapproved Information Source and HISTORICAL ARCHIVE. The only source of truth, where Paradox Manifests: Hundreds of thousands of visits. Yet No One Admits to Reading It. Welcome to the "Grey Area" where "Unethical Utterances," i.e., criticisms of administrators, are commonplace. Make U.U. here where genuine civility still reigns, a.k.a., freedom.........................
UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO'S EQUIVALENT TO RADIO FREE EUROPE

~At the same time, Wilhelm von Humbolt, the German whom many credit for founding in the early 1800s the model of the modern university, looks down at college campuses from the clouds and says to himself, "Just as I left it." … An excellent school certainly, but a school that, as Mr. Humbolt might say today, is "just as I left it."~

It's embarassing when our president ventures forth to blog to the world about his puny achievements, and then twice screws up the spelling of a real achiever like Humboldt, meanwhile demoting him from Baron to "Mr."

President Jacobs might be wise to read what Wilhelm Humboldt actually thought about educational policy before he writes about him. It is a quick Internet search. President Jacobs' actions are in direct contradiction to Humboldt's educational philosophy. Or perhaps those academic leaders who are advising him need to take time for a bit of scholarship themselves. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/ThinkersPdf/humbolde.PDF

One also wonders why President Jacobs is so worried about events at the University of Virginia when there is a major investigation into a terrible tragedy at his own institution. And the U Va President had the strong support of the faculty in the dispute with the Board.

President Jacobs appears to blame the cost of education on the theory of education that Baron Humboldt is credited with formulating. Yet Baron Humboldt's university structure did not have the layers of administration and the depth of services offered by most universities in the United States today. President Jacobs conveniently ignores this as he rewards his senior staff. Should we return to Baron Humboldt's structure, we might just find education much less expensive as well as returning the university to its original objective, that is, teaching and research. Of course, President Jacobs might have problems trying to reward his cronies which seems most relevant in President Jacobs' structure.

The Toledo Blade article reported by UT-AAUP highlights the view of higher education held, not only by Jacobs, but also by a great number of our community leaders today. Unfortunately, the technologists of the world who are now in key positions of leadership and who have long avoided thinking about the grand questions of who we are and what should be our ethics, our morals and our relationships to other humans, are exerting their influence to turn higher education into schools where only the advancements in technologies are taught. "Eveeryone should learn a trade" is their overriding mentality. Thought about the questions raised by living is wasted time based an the actions of these leading technologists. No wonder the world is in such a quagmire today.

Jacobs firmly believes in class distinctions. I think he does believe the humanities have a role in higher ed - but in the elite universities where the elite members of society are being educated for leadership roles. For a university like Toledo, the humanities are an unnecessary diversion from a pursuit of the careers its students will pursue. In other words, I think Jacobs believes the volk and the engineers and doctors in a society don't need or benefit from a classical education and it's a waste of their time and of the university's resources to provide one.

The Victim's Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind (2012) by Bruce Bawer.

The new UT Provost and anyone else who wants to help drive UT and higher ed in the right direction and understand some of the most fundamental issues that continue to hamstring UT, higher education, government, the economy, real social justice and pretty much everything else in contemporary society, need to read this book - or at least read an executive summary presented by a trusted colleague.

MOST of the administrative (and academic) bloat in higher Ed that faculty continue to complain about here on the ASC blog is driven by PoMo PC identity politics.

If you cut out all this politicized PoMo PC bureaucratic administrative pseudo-academic pseudo-intellectual ideological crap there will be a super-abundant surplus of quality, effective and sustainable financial and human capital and resources remaining to devote to REAL education and REAL research and REAL problem solving of REAL issues.

Like I said, pick up a laser blaster and start shooting down all the political PoMo PC academic and administrative asteroids and what's left over will be a lean and mean high quality no-more-victim-mentality university that will serve the REAL best interests of all stakeholders and make real students, teachers, scholars, academic administrators and alumni proud.

There is a vast new-found academic gold mine filled with tremendous untapped academic and administrative career opportunities for those who may feel threatened by the assault on PoMo PC - namely Post-Postmodern Studies - the new academic discipline dedicated to deconstructing and shoveling out all the PoMo PC bullshit that has accumulated in academia, politics and culture over the past 50-odd years.

Hard Eight: Auto-Ethnographic Essays on Academic Culture Featuring the End of the Arts & Sciences College, University of Toledo, 2010

Daily Koan

Should the newly discovered black hole be named in honor of UT BOT?

Swamp Bubble

Do you agree or disagree that University of Toledo suffers from administrative bloat?

How do you feel about the proposed UT Degree Guarantee program? (Reposted to allow more people to vote.)

How do you feel about the proposed UT Guarantee program?

How would you grade the overall performance of the Jacobs' administration on running the University of Toledo?

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Bloggie applauds this perspicacious observer:

"The administration is in a panic mode to implement controversial and irreversible structural and curricular changes campus-wide by early February fiscal plan deadlines with only the vaguest notions of their impacts. The plan is, according to an interview with a top administrator published in the most recent Independent Collegian, to cast out many seeds and "see what grows." This experimental garden, as most senators articulated in many different ways, seems a costly recipe for disaster. Utter madness. Stay tuned."

"Dictionary of Academia" Read it While it's Hot

A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.

Comment of the Week

"This is that old tension between the corporate way of doing things and the academic way of doing things. In the corporate world, you sweep everything under the rug to make your b.s. as shiny, pleasing to the nose, and profitable as possible. In the academic world, you operate with a higher moral standard. Veritas and all that."

Comment of the Week of August 13

Re UT academic posers and hypocrites:

Have their checks calculated in units of postmodern theoretical currency and issued in photocopied legal tender notes signed by Walter Benjamin with a photo of Karl Marx and a seal stamped “In Derrida We Trust”.

Comment of the Era

Wow! Ain't that something.

-Anonymous

Comment of the Week

Mention goes to the the anonymous commentator of Feb 7, who, regarding UT President Llloyd Jacob's "Investing in Faculty" letter, stated: "If we could use the same criteria for 'investing in administrators' we could cut most of those positions."

Comments to HLC

Make sure you address your comments to HLC to the email address listed below in the "Higher Learning Commission Wants to Know" post. This may be the only chance you have to be heard. Bloggie hears that UT administration has discussed giving faculty "training" so that faculty members know how to "properly" talk to the HLC folks. How's that for stacking the deck? Does everyone get a little script to read? Make sure you practice before a mirror at being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Comment of the Week!

Definitely, the Comment of the Week award goes to Anonymous 12:14 pm, Dec 3, under the "Higher Learning Commission Needs to Know" posting by Diogenes. Pithy and pointed!

TO CONTACT BLOGGIE . . .

Bloggie is always glad to consider submissions to this blog. If you have something that you wish posted please send it to:

ascbloggie@gmail.com

Letter and Petition from Foreign Languages Faculty Member

A couple weeks ago, at the beginning of summer break, we in the Department of Foreign Languages were informed that our secretary's position was being eliminated and that while she will not lose her job (she'll be transferred), that position is not to be filled. We apparently will be expected to do our own jobs plus what we can of the secretary's. That is clearly not acceptable, and so one of the steps we in FL are taking against it is an online petition now available for any who want to (including those who for whatever reason--not a registered Ohio voter, not a US citizen, etc.--cannot sign the petition against SB5), to read and sign.

I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.

It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.

Nemeth Does it Again

Nemeth's New Article in Collegian

The Independent Collegian has run another of Professor Nemeth's fine and provocative articles in its latest edition. This one discusses the double-talk by mouthpieces for the current UT administration concerning the effects of and reasons behind so-called strategic reorganization. Make sure you get the latest version of Newspeak 5.1 if you want to decode what UT administrators are really saying.

UT Ranks 13th Nationally on Administrative Bloat

See Appendix B of the Administrative Bloat report posted on 8/28 for evidence, but UT now has a higher proportion of administrators to students than all but 12 public universities in America. President Jacobs has finally put University of Toledo in the top tier. With Strategic Organization he may be aiming for number one.

This Blog is a free and independent information source. Contributions and comments are welcome. Contact: ASCBloggie@gmail.com WARNING AND DISCLAIMER !!!! This blog is entirely non-official!! People may express opinion here, exercising freedom of speech and association.

Recent Letters from The Blade

Jacobs' arrogance is astonishing

Recently, President Lloyd Jacobs of the University of Toledo stated that bonuses were justified because his administrators "took all the risks."

As a professor at UT, I am outraged that President Jacobs claims that administrators take all of the risks. What risks do they take that the other faculty and staffs on campus do not?

Administrators are protected by state and federal employment laws and by their contracts.

When ex-President Vik Kapoor was terminated, he remained a professor with a salary near what he was paid as president.

As president emeritus, Dan Johnson retained a salary greater than his pay as president.

In the recent layoffs, exceptionally few administrators were terminated. It seems to me that low-level personnel at UT have far more risks because the greater proportion of the layoffs have come from their ranks. And they did not have continuing salaries.

President Jacobs' answer to questions on two occasions regarding relinquishing part of his bonus was to the effect that he earned his bonuses and what he did with them was his business.

Administrators do not risk their personal money in their duties: they use taxpayer money and funds collected through donations and grants to the university.

Administrators take home salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and then add bonuses for longevity and whatever else the president decides is fitting for their contracts.

However, the lower-level personnel have much lower salaries and no such bonuses. Where is the risk?

It seems to me that these bonuses are convoluted: The lower-level personnel are taking the greater risks with no bonuses while the administrators with very rewarding jobs with little risk receive large bonuses.

Am I missing something here?

WALTER W. OLSON,

Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing

Engineering,

University of Toledo

It's the same old, same old at UT

I could hardly believe the arrogance of Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, president of the University of Toledo, when a reporter asked if he would be willing to forgo his bonus in light of the layoffs, raise in tuition, etc.

His comment was that he worked for it. Is that to say that the ones being laid off did not work for their pay?

All I can say is, business as usual at UT. Some things never change.

SANDY FLICK

Rose Acres Drive

UT also has checks, balances

In response to letter titled "Professors must focus on teaching," I would like to point out that the University of Toledo operates on the basis of shared governance.

This means that faculty members participate in the administration of the university.

A focus on teaching requires faculty to address administrative issues such as policies, procedures, and yes, finances, because these all affect classroom outcomes. A university with solid and equitable finances benefits everyone, including and especially the students. Just as the U.S. government is constituted to have checks and balances, so is our university government.

The UT-AAUP is one of those checks against UT administrators who most recently have displayed more concern for their own profit rather than a concern for the common good.

LINDA M. ROUILLARD,

Associate Professor

of French,

University of Toledo

Quote of the Year (so far)

The following is excerpted from the recent UT AAUP newsletter concerning the official university response to news of the bonus scandal:

. . . . Either Jacobs is misleading the media or he has misled the Board of Trustees.

President Jacobs objected to "the general tone" of the UT-AAUP Newsletter. Many persons on this campus object to the "general tone" of the Jacobs Administration. During his tenure as President, he has introduced an administrative culture of fear and intimidation. . . .

A point of logic must be raised here, with all respect to UT AAUP, the conclusions that President Jacobs has (1) misled the media and (2) the Board of Trustees are not mutually exclusive. Both would seem likely given his considerable talent at spinning "visions."

How to Contribute

The Blog is now under new management, a consortium of ASC faculty who pooled their longevity bonuses to purchase it from its original owners. Your comments are still welcome but look for some changes. Contact: ASCBloggie@gmail.com. Your contributions might include new posts, images, comments to existing articles/posts, concerns about process and substance at UT's College of Arts & Sciences. This blog is entirely non-official, for which you can be thankful, unless you enjoy reading self-serving bureaucratic propaganda, and is intended as a discussion and commentary forum for UT A&S faculty and community.

Another Claim and Disclaimer

A blog is a blog is a blog. Information, comments and opinions found here don't represent official views, instead they represent truthful and sincere ones. If you want the official line on things go elsewhere. This is a discussion and comment page. You may even read things here that you disagree with, and then, maybe not.